


Man’s Best Friend

by Innwich



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cats, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4814888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Sebastian met Joseph at a crime scene, Joseph was digging a hole in a dead family's yard.</p><p>AKA The one where Joseph was a cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man’s Best Friend

Four dead in the house, and no one had heard a damn thing.

“Shit,” Sebastian said, and immediately regretted opening his mouth when he tasted the sour air on his tongue. The forensics team ignored him and kept on taking photographs of the blood on the wall.

He would never get used to that smell, no matter what anyone said.

The inside of the house was in a mess. It was like a whirlwind had passed through it; tables and chairs were overturned and the contents of the cupboards had been empties onto the floor. It didn’t help that the family had obviously been hoarders. The toppled piles of old newspapers made the narrow hallways even harder to navigate. Couldn’t walk through a room without stepping on cockroaches that were darting out from under the newspapers.

Sebastian didn’t look forward to combing through the bags of evidence that would be hauled to the precinct after the forensics team was done with the crime scene. He hadn’t found the murder weapon that had been used to stab the victims to death, let alone any usable clues.

It was times like this that Sebastian wished Myra was still his partner. He ate lunch with her whenever the cases let up and God knew how happy he was to see her after work now that she’d moved in with him, but it wasn’t the same as working cases together.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Sebastian said.

An evidence technician mumbled an acknowledgement, “Mmm, we’re searching for a ten-inch chef’s knife, detective. Thought you might like to know.”

“Thanks,” Sebastian said.

The air on the quiet suburban street was remarkably fresh after an hour spent inside the house, though it might have something to do with the wild growth of vegetation in the front yard of the house. The driveway was barely visible under the knee-high weeds creeping over the gravel. Sebastian leaned against his police cruiser, dug through his pockets, and fished out his pack of cigarettes.

The pack came up empty. He’d smoked the last of it at lunch break.

Sebastian crumpled the cardboard carton. “It’s just my lucky day.”

Times like this he wished Myra was around so they could bounce ideas off of each other. It wasn’t the same going solo on cases. Sebastian looked down the road, where a few other police cruisers were parked. The people that had been gawking outside the line had gone home as soon as it had become dark. A couple of uniforms were standing guard next to the police line and a news van was idling on the far end of the street.

“Meow.”

Surprised, Sebastian turned around to find a black cat staring up at him. It was a lean thing with long limbs and a slender tail. A red collar circled its neck. Its eyes were bright against its dark fur. It couldn’t have grown into adulthood for long.

If Sebastian were a superstitious man, he’d cross himself and look both ways for the rest of the day. But he’d seen too much crap to think God or luck had anything to do with bad shit happening.

“Where did you come from?” Sebastian said.

The cat was too clean to be a stray but it was a little on the skinny side. Seeing that the cat was eying the pocket of his trench coat, Sebastian fished out his half-eaten lunch. The sandwich had long gone soggy after he’d gotten the call to come out here; he would have to dump it anyway. Sebastian tugged out the corned beef from his sandwich. “Here you go.”

The cat leaned forward to sniff at it, before slurping the corned beef up like it was milk. It licked the ground clean, meat and juice and all.

“How about you have the rest of it? You look like you could use it,” Sebastian said.

Sebastian put the rest of the sandwich on the floor. The cat started on the meal quickly, working steadily from the crust of the bread, holding down the bread with one paw as if the bread would make a break of it any second. It was oddly entrancing, watching the cat tearing into the sandwich. It made for a nice change from staring at dead bodies for hours.

“Didn’t happen to see what happened in that house, did you?” Sebastian said.

The cat kept eating.

“Didn’t think so,” Sebastian said. “Well, at least some of us is having a good day.”

Before long, the cat finished the sandwich. It stood and shook itself, before disappearing around the front of the car.

Sebastian stayed on the street, taking in the clean air before heading back into the house. It would take him another five minutes in the room before he stopped wanting to gag on the smell, but someone got to do it.

Then Sebastian heard something.

The cat was yowling.

It was a series of long high-pitched sounds that seemed to drag on forever. It made the hair on the back of Sebastian’s neck rise. He’d never heard a cat sound like this.

Sebastian waded into the front yard, pushing past some overgrown ferns that cluttered around a dead tree. He wasn’t sure what kind of things could be lying around in the yard, but there could be mousetraps that would easily hurt a small animal. He couldn’t see the cat; he could only follow the sound until he spotted the tail that stretched up from the weeds like a flagpole.

The cat quietened down when Sebastian squatted next to it. It wasn’t hurt in anyway. It was digging under a bush with its front paws. “What are you making a racket for?”

The cat nosed at the dirt and turned its eyes to Sebastian.

A kitchen knife lay half-buried in the dirt. Its blade was crusted with dried blood.

“Shit,” Sebastian said.

\- - -

  
_March 2005_   
_Joseph is a great detective and we’re a good team._   


The other detectives had gone home for the night.

Most of the traffic outside on the roads had died down, although the lights at the crossings kept ticking for the late night commuters. Sebastian was alone in the precinct, save for the few uniforms working the front and the janitor starting up the vacuum in the next room over.

There was a rustle of fur, and Joseph was lifting his head from his paws and staring at the office door, which was propped open with a doorstopper. Connelly wandered in with a mug in hand. The man was in full uniform; it must be his shift tonight and he made his rookie man the front desk alone again.

“Late night, detective?” Connelly said.

“Third one in a row,” Sebastian said. He checked his watch. Nearly ten o’clock and he had another dozen pages of paperwork to go through. Myra would be in bed by the time he got home. They were seeing less of each other than before they had moved in together. “We got any coffee left?”

“Sorry, detective. This is the last of it.” Connelly raised his mug. “You want it?”

“Keep it, Connelly.” Sebastian sighed and rubbed his face. The heat of his palm made him feel more alert; it lasted for a few seconds before it faded away. “What I want is the report to write itself so I can go home to Myra before she’s asleep for once.”

“Your new partner is no help, huh?” Connelly said.

“Not unless he grows opposable thumbs,” Sebastian said.

A janitor had found Joseph sitting outside the interrogation room one early morning. The cat had probably hitched a ride at the back of one of the cruisers when the officers had driven back to the precinct from the crime scene. And the news had soon spread throughout the precinct that the cat that had helped Detective Castellanos close a case had followed him home. Sebastian had found nothing but the cat’s name on the collar. The captain had ordered everyone in the precinct to keep the windows closed.

After the second week of finding Joseph in the detectives’ office, the captain had given up on trying to keep him out of the precinct. After all, it wasn’t like they could seal the doors, not when concerned citizens and common criminals came through the precinct on a daily basis.

Someone did set up a water bowl in the breakroom though.

“You know, I never see him here this late in the precinct when you’re not around,” Connelly said.

“What?” Sebastian said. He could count on one hand the times that Joseph wasn’t sitting on his desk while he slaved over witness statements and coroners’ reports, and it was always weird to not find Joseph watching him from behind the desk lamp. “I thought he stays here for the night.”

“Nah, he just clocks in earlier than most of the morning shift,” Connelly said. “Must’ve taken a shine to you, detective, if he keeps coming back like this.”

“It’s the damn donuts everyone is feeding him,” Sebastian said.

But it didn’t take a detective to notice that Joseph came to sit on Sebastian’s desk and no one else’s when Sebastian was working in the office, or that Joseph sometimes followed him all the way out to a crime scene. It couldn’t be the lunches that Sebastian had taken to sharing with Joseph. God knew what Joseph saw in him though, because what he saw in the mirror was a man that had wanted to make a difference and had ended up seeing more shit than he’d signed up for.

Now, he just wanted to finish the paperwork and went home to Myra.

\- - -

  
_July 2006_   
_We welcome with love Lily Lynh Castellanos._   


“Seb.”

Sebastian opened his eyes to see Myra leaning against the bedroom doorway. It was Saturday morning, but she was already dressed for work.

Another weekend with just him and Lily at the park.

Sebastian’s paternity leave was next to non-existent, what with the ongoing cases that needed to be followed up and the court trials that he had to testify at. It was worse for Myra, who always had to head out for work. She never told him where she went, but he had a few guesses. Every day counted in cases of missing persons, and he couldn’t ask her to stay at home when someone out there could have information that rescued kids from a human trafficking ring.

Sebastian stayed at home more often to take care of Lily. They might need to hire a babysitter later if workload piled up again. Lily was already such an energetic baby. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like when she learnt to walk. Sebastian could barely keep up with her.

“You won’t believe who’s here,” Myra said.

“Please don’t tell me it’s the captain,” Sebastian groaned. “It’s my day off.”

“When has that stopped him?” Myra said. “No, it’s someone else. Come and take a look for yourself.”

Lily was sitting up in her cot. The rattle that Lily never slept without was left forgotten to the side. Instead, Lily was patting Joseph and clutching at the patch of fur on his chest, while he sniffed her stained napkin.

“He came in through the window,” Myra said.

Lily tugged at Joseph’s ears. Joseph didn’t seem bothered by her administrations. He bumped his head against her hand, and Lily giggled when Joseph tickled her face with his whiskers.

“He misses seeing you at the precinct,” Myra said.

“I dropped in yesterday,” Sebastian argued. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised by Joseph’s appearance, but Joseph had become such a common sight at the precinct that there was no doubt he was one of the family. “Nice of you to drop by though, Joseph.”

Lily was trying to catch the end of Joseph’s tail, but Joseph kept flicking his tail away from her. When Joseph looked up at the sound of his name, Lily lunged forwards to grab his tail in her arms. She squealed and rubbed her cheek against it like it was a blankie.

Joseph wriggled his tail, but he didn’t move to pull it out of her grasp.

Sebastian was smiling so widely that his cheeks hurt. He looked for the camera that they kept around the house for moments like these, before he realized that Myra hadn’t grabbed her briefcase and coat. She was still standing in the room and watching Lily playing with Joseph.

“Won’t you be late for your meeting?” Sebastian said.

Myra took a moment before she answered, without taking her eyes off of Lily, “They won’t mind if I’m late for a few minutes.”

\- - -

  
_February 2012_   
_Fire._   


“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.”

\- - -

  
_August 2012_   
_As if I don’t have enough to deal with personally and professionally, Joseph and I have just been assigned a rookie to train._   


Myra had always been the kind of woman that was hard to read, but these days she might as well be a million miles away when they slept on their own side of the bed and exchanged no more than a few words a night.

The police psychiatrist had come down to the precinct to see Sebastian after the fire, and Sebastian had ended up spending a few sessions on the doctor’s couch. Apparently, it was normal for couples to experience marital difficulties after the death of a child. But that wasn’t it. Sebastian had held Myra’s hand through the entire funeral, and she hadn’t held his hand back. Her grip had been loose and cold. She hadn’t shed a tear when the coffin had been lowered into the grave. Like it’d been a funeral of a dead kid that they’d been politely attending so they could talk to the grieving parents afterwards.

Everyone had come to Lily’s funeral. And it was like they’d never left the funeral from the way they talked in hushed voices when he was at the precinct, like he would shatter if they spoke too loud. Conversations ended as soon as he walked into a room and then he knew they’d been talking about him, about his wife and his daughter and his drinking and how goddamn lucky they weren’t him.

Getting a call and heading to a crime scene and watching the product of someone else’s fucked up life being outlined in white chalk was a welcome relief from the silence that followed him at the precinct, more so now that he’d learnt to ignore the prickling on his nape whenever Kidman was staring at his back.

Usually rookies wanted to know everything about the job: from how to field calls, find clues, and book in suspects, to how to file the damn paperwork. But not Kidman. She only spoke when prompted, and he had a feeling that she saw more than she let on.

But training Kidman gave him a new purpose. When he focused on his job and his rookie, he didn’t have to think about the gaping hole in his chest that no booze could fill.

It was late but the DA’s office wanted to see the file on the investigation before they decided whether to charge the suspect. Sebastian put in a new pot of coffee for the long night ahead, and returned to the office to find Joseph curled up on Kidman’s lap and Kidman smoothing out the fur on his neck.

At first Sebastian wasn’t sure what made him stop and stand stock still in the doorway. Then he realized Kidman was smiling slightly. She wasn’t even showing her teeth, but it was the most unguarded expression that had crossed her face since she set foot at the precinct.

“I see you’ve met Joseph.” Sebastian set down a cup of coffee on Kidman’s desk.

“Joseph,” Kidman repeated, stroking Joseph behind the ears. “Who does he belong to?”

“No idea,” Sebastian said.

“He’s a stray?” Kidman said. There was something in her tone that Sebastian couldn’t identify but was too worn out to care.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sebastian said, settling behind his desk with a cup of coffee that was liberally sprinkled with Jack’s. “Joseph has been doing this job for years, so he’s practically your superior officer. You’ll respect him like you do the rest of us.”

\- - -

  
_September 2012_   
_Myra is gone._   


His flask was empty. His head was pounding and his mouth was desert dry.

Sebastian decided the office was too bright and switched off his desk lamp. He kept the rest of the lights on to keep himself from falling asleep onto the pile of files he’d borrowed from Missing Persons. He’d read through these files before to cross-reference them with the notes that Myra had left behind at her office, but it wasn’t like he had any other leads to follow up on.

“Go, Joseph,” Sebastian said. “This is none of your business.”

Sebastian rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the words swimming in front of him, but he couldn’t concentrate when he kept checking if Joseph was done sitting at the door of the office and judging him silently. Joseph had been following him like a shadow since he’d started splitting his time between the bar and the precinct so he hadn’t had to return to an empty house.

And he knew what Joseph was thinking. It was what everyone was thinking: that Myra just needed space and maybe she wouldn’t have left in the first place if Sebastian wasn’t searching for monsters at the bottom of every bottle.

Sebastian opened a window. “Get out. I don’t want you here.”

Joseph leveled him with an unreadable gaze. It took Sebastian rattling the window hard enough to almost break it before Joseph moved from his place at the door and jumped down into the alleyway that the window opened to.

The blast of cold air helped clear Sebastian’s mind a bit, enough to make him realize he was chasing away one of the few friends he’d left. He’d lost Lily, he’d lost Myra, and now he’d lost Joseph. Seemed right.

He scanned through the reports he got from pulling strings and calling in favors. There had been nothing suspicious with her phone records. None of her credit cards had been used. The money in her bank account hadn’t been touched in weeks. It was as if Myra had walked off the face of the Earth.

But Sebastian wouldn’t believe she’d done that voluntarily. He refused to believe it.

“What are you doing, detective?”

Sebastian started and nearly knocked his knee into his desk. “I’m working on a case. Think you took the wrong turn to the washroom, Investigator Phi.”

“I’ve received reports that you’ve been staying in late after hours,” Phi said. “I was wondering why.”

“I work overtime,” Sebastian said. “Not everyone gets a cushy job at Internal Affairs.”

“It concerns us when police officers are suspected of professional misconduct.”

“Are you accusing me of something?” Sebastian said.

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Phi said. “Consider it a warning, Castellanos. I’m keeping a close eye on you.”

\- - -

  
_ Missing _   
_Oscar Connelly_   
_ Missing _   
_Juli Kidman_   
_ Missing _   
_Joseph Oda_   
_ Missing _   
_Sebastian Castellanos_   


Sebastian blinked.

He thought he saw a van trying to overtake them a few seconds ago, but it was gone. The road was empty except for the police cruiser.

He must’ve nodded off.

“That’s not what happened. Some patients disappeared. Some kind of scandal?”

It was drizzling. Raindrops splattered across the windshield again as soon as the wipers finished wiping it clean. Sebastian couldn’t stop watching the wipers swing from side to side like an inverted pendulum, while listening to the discussion about the files they had on Beacon Hospital. The information about the disappearances wasn’t anything he didn’t know already.

“Still, gives ya the creeps, doesn’t it?” Connelly said.

Sebastian looked in the mirror. Joseph was sitting in the back of the car with Kidman, dressed in a black suit and a red tie. His mouth was set in a grim line. All Sebastian could think about was how soft Joseph’s hair would feel if he touched it.

Sebastian shook himself. The mental fatigue of doing several cases back-to-back was settling in. It was nothing a stiff drink couldn’t fix. For now, he had to focus on the case they were heading to. He’d never liked going in blind. “Joseph, you think there’s a connection?”

Joseph nodded. He raised his eyes, and, for an impossible second, they glowed gold in the light. “It’s a possibility. I believe the records were sealed.”


End file.
